


Sem Will Outlive Us All

by pikabot



Category: Unsounded
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-15 11:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pikabot/pseuds/pikabot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their marriage was arranged, yet passionate. Loving, but distant. It should have lasted forever, but was short-lived even by the standards of the hethllot. This work is a portrait of Vienne and Mathis Quiqley's life together, and the mistake that brought about its end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sem Will Outlive Us All

**Author's Note:**

> This is an edited version of my entry into the first official fanfiction contest. It made it into the finals.

He was away when they chose her for him.

Although no more than a boy by the standards of the other castes, to the gossamer Plats life is too precious to be wasted in idle adolescence. By the age of fourteen he was old enough to both have spent several years in service to the Window, and to be saddled with the duty of procreation. Were he present, he could have voiced an opinion as to which of the village's girls he should be wed to; but he was miles away at the time, and knee-deep in Old Tainish, and in any event he held no strong opinions on the matter. Let other boys chase the girls and make them blush. Mathis Quigley, for whom the world was composed of naught but Aspects held together by lines of poetry in a dead language, would do his duty to his village, but never anything more.

When he returned, having worked out the duration of his contract, he learned with disinterest that he had been married to Vienne, the forge-master's daughter. He had heard of her, of course, the village was too small for them to be entirely ignorant of the other's existence, but it was also large enough that they had not met in person, at least not that he could remember.

Vienne Reyligh, the boyish, ill-mannered girl more comfortable in a forge than in a household. Mathis Quigley, who had never removed his nose from his books long enough to make more than casual acquaintances. It was no wonder that these two were the only ones not spoken for at the very end of the selection process. The village elders – not even thirty years old and already fading away – laughed as they made it official. Perhaps It was the perfect match after all.

*

His first dull impression of her was that she was prettier than he had expected, given her reputation. His first vivid impression of her was that she did not look at him in the same way as the other girls: her gaze was steady and full of fire, defiance rather than deference.

But it was not until she stepped in to correct his syntax and question his use of Legrange's Theorem that he fell irrevocably in love with her.

* 

(Her first impression of _him_ was that he needed to eat a sandwich or two. Her second, that he had an expression like a fish's when you surprised him. She fell in love with him anyway.)

*

For Mathis, there were two Kasslynes: pre-Vienne and post-Vienne. The first was composed of nothing but artistically arranged aspects and the khert's omnipresent feelers. It was large, and complex, and majestic in its scope, but unquestionably rational. He kept no stock in the Gefendur pantheon, nor with Ssael. If there _were_ Gods, it was obvious to him that they hated the _hethllot,_ and so deserved neither his respect nor his piety.

Vienne felt differently. She was no priestess, but a belief in the Twins underscored everything in her life. Where Mathis saw unfeeling khert lines, she saw the living work of Brother Baelar. When she worked pymary, she was not simply changing the world around her. She was tapping into the domain of the Twins themselves, following the example of the younger Brother. At the center of her world was an impenetrable core of divinity, around which everything else she bore witness to organized itself into meaningful patterns.

Mathis could not have been convinced to share his wife's faith, even if she had been inclined to try. But the light she cast on his life was so bright it reached all his deepest crevices; he could not have withstood it and emerged unchanged. In the post-Vienne world, there were still no Gods keeping watch, nor was the universe arranged according to some ineffable principle. But there was now space carved out at the center of it for something unknowable and all-important. A space which one could call divine, were it not carved in the shape of his wife.

* 

Their first attempts at lovemaking were disastrous. They each knew enough to understand _what_ was supposed to go _where_ , but after ten minutes of trying and failing to find the right angle of approach, they each began to suspect that their friends – perhaps more accurately described as acquaintances – had been playing a practical joke on them. The instructions they had given them were clearly impossible. By the time they had it worked out, they had decided to call it a night, mutually embarrassed. The next night went much more smoothly, and most nights from then onwards.

*

Six months after their wedding night, Mathis took another job with the Window. A permanent position this time, acting as field agent. He would be responsible for retrieving the bodies of criminals, stung through the Dammakhert, and delivering them to the municipal office. It was not difficult work for a Plat, but it paid very well.

Vienne did not want him to take it. The job would keep him away from the village for enormous stretches of time, months at the least, and she was still not with child. Time, more valuable than golden sem, was slipping away from them, and she couldn't bear to lose more of it waiting for him to come home.

Mathis saw it differently. “No matter what we do, we will grow old and die while our child has scarcely begun to mature. Six months here and there make little difference. But sem – why, sem will outlive us all. The best thing we can do for our child is leave him enough money to get by when we're gone. And the money is _good_ , Vienne.”

She never came to agree with him, but she could think of no good counterargument. And so she unhappily consented to let him work half a world away.

*

(She did not tell him about the meetings she had been attending, or the publications she had been reading, distributed in secret by the March. But perhaps even then she had an inkling of what was to come, of what _must_ come if neither of them deviated from the paths they had set for themselves.)

* 

The work suited Quigley better than he had expected. He had always preferred the inside of a study to the world outside of it, but the long treks through the woodlands and mountains of Alderode offered him greater solitude and time to think than even the darkest library, provided he was not saddled with a partner. The landscape had a certain beauty to it that he had not been aware of until he was suddenly cast into the midst of it.

The work itself was also an unexpected pleasure. While the target of a Sting was left comatose, their friends, allies, and families were not. They were little challenge for a battle-trained _hethllot_ , but the thrill of it sank in deep in his bones. He knew he had nothing to be proud of – these were thugs and hedge wrights, at best – but he could not help the surge that passed through his body when he took victory in hand.

There was only one thing about it that he hated, and that was his wife's absence. Every time a job opening arose he asked, but always received the same answer: the Window does not hire female wrights, of _any_ skill level. They were ill-suited to the work. They could not be relied upon. They could not cast while their monthly blood was flowing. It would not be _proper_.

He had expected no different, but it stung all the same. He found solace only in reading Vienne's letters, and writing in reply.

 *

_Dearest Mathis,_

_How goes it out in the cold? This winter is bitter, you would not have me in your shoes for all the sem in the world. The chill even manages to penetrate my forge at times. And there's you, wandering here and there, doing to Window's dirty work! I hope you've packed some long underwear._

_The village is much the same as usual. I think some of the other women hoped that marriage would settle me down some, but you know how I love to be a disappointment. Even if my father could still run the forge himself, I wouldn't have any plans to give it up; fire and pymary are in my blood now, and it's too late to get them out._

_But you already know all of this. Tell me something about your work, so I'll have something interesting to discuss in my next letter!_

_Love,_

_Vienne_

 

_Dearest Vienne,_

_They've issued us heating pymarics for the long journeys, but they're small and very basic models. You could make so much better, even given the dismal quality of these First Materials, if only you were here. Which, really, summarizes the only things I don't like about the job in one swoop: the cold, and the absence of you._

_But if you want something a bit more interesting to discuss, how about this: I just spotted one of the very men I brought in on my first day in the market. The idiot has an enormous tattoo of a vliegeng on his face, you couldn't miss him. I suppose he must have escaped prosecution somehow, and there's no outstanding warrants on him. None of my business, I suppose, but I may ask around about it tomorrow. How's that for mystery for you?_

_Love,_

_Mathis_

* 

When he asked about it the next day at mess, the table fell into silence. The silence solidified into an impenetrable gelatin, and although nobody said anything on the topic, one at a time, the men found an excuse to get up and leave. Quigley sat alone at the table, baffled.

One of the men took him aside later to explain it.

“Look, he was Aldrich's brother-in-law.” Aldrich was one of the senior Stingers, an expert in his field.

“He is? So?”

“So when his wife's brother gets dragged in after shooting off his mouth uncautiously after a wild night, Aldrich...took care of it. He called in some favors to get the charges dropped, get it?”

Suddenly Quigley _did_ get it, but he must have looks sufficiently shocked that the man felt obliged to explain further. “Where's the sense in sending him to the interrogators just because he said something stupid once? Waste of their time, waste of his time. Better for everyone this way. It's no big deal, everybody does it, but you don't _talk_ about it. Understand?”

Quigley felt as though he suddenly understood a great deal more than the other man was expecting. He nodded.

_*_

_Dearest Mathis,_

_Well, I suppose you were right not to worry. I've suspected for a while but now it's certain: you did get me pregnant before running off to the hinterlands! It must have been one of those last romps around the bedroom we had before you left._

_You should see my father's face, it's all full of color again. He swears he'll cling to life long enough to see his grandson born, even if he's as clear as water by the end of it. I'm not sure he'll make it (Twins, you can see right through him in places), but we're all hopeful._

_Will you be coming home soon? I don't expect you to drop everything at my beck and call but given the circumstances, I'm sure you can get some time off._

_Love,_

_Vienne_

 

_Dearest Vienne,_

_That is fantastic news! You can't see it from here, obviously, but I'm grinning like an idiot. Me, a father...it's almost hard to believe. Inevitable, of course, but still hard to believe._

_I'll look into time off the next time I'm at the central office. I'm new to the department still, so it may be a bit tricky to finagle...but I'll find a way, I promise. Fate willing, I'll be standing right next to your father to greet the little one on arrival._

_Mathis_

* 

Neither of them were there for the birth. Vienne's father lost strength mere weeks too soon, his final wish unfulfilled. As for Mathis, there was always more work to do, more trips over the horizon, more sem awaiting him. The time never seemed right, he was kept away on assignment for months at a time, until he finally returned home to find a month-old baby boy looking up at him with the brightest eyes he had ever seen.

“I cannot believe you named him after me,” he said in hushed tones once they had put the child to bed.

“Well, what was I supposed to do? Keep calling him 'the baby' until you deigned to come home?”

“Vienne, please-”

“I know, I know. Still, he had to have a name, and you know I've always been rubbish at those.”

“I don't even particularly like it as a name for _me_.”

“So call him Matty. That's what we've been doing. He doesn't look nearly deadly serious enough to be a 'Mathis', honestly.”

He lightly batted her with a pillow, and they both laughed until baby Matty woke, crying.

* 

(Little was said about her father's passing. The life of a Plat can consume you in mourning if you let it, so most of them try not to give it the opportunity.)

*

Mathis stayed no more than a month before he had to return. As he embraced his wife and son, he promised them he would come again soon.

“I should hope so,” Vienne laughed as he released her. “Try not to miss his first birthday at least, will you?”

“I won't. I'll return before a year's worth of light has glinted off of his hair, I promise.”

He waved goodbye to his wife, his child, and the few villagers who came out to see him off, and then set out over the long road connecting the _hethllot_ village to the nearest city.

As it turned out, he did manage to keep that promise; he turned up a few days before Matty's first birthday, flushed with pride. But it would be one of the few. He broke more promises than he kept, and missed more special days than he was there for. There was always the work, calling him back with the promises of riches, of a legacy for his son that could outlast his gossamer frame. He could no more ignore that call than he could the rumbling of his own stomach.

* 

“Papa, look! Watch me!”

Mathis' heart was in his throat as he watched Matty climb the rocks ahead, on scraped palms and battered knees, at what seemed like a treacherous pace. It was not particularly high, or dangerous, but his son was only six years old, and to a worried father a drop of a foot was as long as a drop down a mountainside.

“Calm yourself,” Vienne said, elbowing him lightly in the ribs without taking her eyes off of Matty's tiny frame. “He does this little climb ever day. He knows those rocks by heart.”

“I know that,” he replied anxiously, his eyes likewise riveted. “I _do_ read your letters. It doesn't make it any less nerve-wracking to watch.”

Matty made his ascent in the fearless, energetic way known only to young children, until he crested the top of the slope and stood above them, looking down triumphantly, hands in the air.

“Did ya see?”

“Yes, Matty, we saw,” Vienne laughed, clapping. “Well done.”

When Mathis gave no more reaction than a relieved slumping of the shoulders, Vienne prodded him again. “Go on, say something,” she muttered.

Snapping out of his torpor, Mathis began applauding as well, and calling up “Well done!”, but the words felt hollow to his ears. It hadn't come automatically to him, like it should for a proper father. Perhaps he wasn't cut out for this.

His failures were forgotten, though, when Matty, proudly waving still, overbalanced and fell down out of sight. Gripped with mortal terror, Mathis dashed forward, calling his son's name. Even Vienne, who knew full well there was nothing behind that ridge but soft earth, started forward, a little concerned. They found him resting halfway down the hill, rubbing the back of his head.

“Are you alright?” Mathis demanded, sweeping him up. “You scared me half to death, never do that again!”

“'m fine,” Matty insisted, feeling smothered. “I just bumped my head a little.”

“Let me see that,” Mathis admonished, pulling Matty forward to get a better look at the impact site.

“Mathis,” Vienne called from behind him.

“There, it doesn't look too bad. But you were lucky, you know that don't you?”

“Mathis,” Vienne repeated.

“You need to be careful. If something were to happen to you, you know it would tear the heart right out of your mother, don't you?” Matty, who looked more troubled by the lecture than the bump, solemnly nodded.

“Mathis!” Vienne called again, more insistent for his attention.

“ _What_ , Vienne?” he cried, exasperated, as he spun around to face her.

She simply pointed to the hillside. “Look at _what_ he bumped his head on.”

Mathis followed her finger to a point halfway down the slope, where the soft earth had shifted enough to reveal a small, round protuberance of green stone. It could have been a plant, were it not for its shape. It could have been a gemstone, were it not for its opacity and dullness.

Slowly, disbelievingly, he reached up to where his glasses met the ports they were set in, and activated the pymaric built into the frame. The golden lines of the khert appeared before him, and he could see how they danced around the green bulb in a way that could only mean one thing.

An hour of excited digging later, the shape of a babyish face began to take form.

* 

“A baby mountain ogre, resting in the mountainside! Its entire body is composed of First Earth. An enormous treasure trove, sitting right under our noses!”

The Quigleys had called the entire village to a meeting. The common hall was full to the rafters with white hair and lavender eyes as every adult (and some of the children, perched in the rafters) assembled to hear about what they'd found.

“And what good does this do us?” a younger man asked. “We can't mine it, and if we do we can't sell it. That ogre belongs to the government by law.”

“Legally, yes,” Vienne began, “but-”

She was instantly shouted down by a wave of protesting men. “Quigley, if you can't control your woman-”

“She's right, though!” Quigley protested. “There's a thriving black market on first materials. We can't sell it all at once, but if we take the ogre apart a bit at a time, with enough patience-”

Now it was his turn to be shouted down. The man who had spoken earlier stood up, angered. “ _Patience_? Have you forgotten what we are? We are _hethllot_! We don't have the luxury of patience!”

“No, that is exactly why we _need_ patience,” Mathis said. “We care more deeply about our children than any other race on the face of Kasslyne. But we do so because our time with them is so short. This ogre is a chance to build something permanent for them, something to sustain our children and our children's children for generations to come, long after we're gone. Of course it's not without risk, but what worth doing is?”

The debate ran long into the night, but in the end all were in agreement: they would excavate the ogre.

* 

For the first time in the nearly five years he had been in service to the Window, Mathis Quigley begged off for a longer leave. He made excuse after plausible excuse, and his record was sufficiently good that his employers never questioned them. He got himself all the time he needed to set these new mines up to run smoothly in his absence.

“Now remember, only you and I know the identity of the buyer I've lined up,” he said, explaining the arrangement while he packed for his return trip. “Everything must go through one of us. No matter what. That's your security in case that oaf Oury or one of his goons decide they can't trust a woman with so much money.”

“I know, Mathis, this is the third time you've explained it for me. Here, don't forget your mantle! I spent ages working on that for you!”

“Yes, of course, I'm just...a bit anxious. I've never been a criminal mastermind before.”

“A bit of illegal pymary around the edges doesn't qualify?”

“Boyish experimentation only,” he replied wryly. “They still haven't found that spellburn, you know. I check it every now and then.”

“You would. Now, you get back to work and don't worry about anything. I'll handle everything from this end. I'll send word if anything happens, I promise.”

* 

In a secret chamber beneath her father's forge – her forge, now – the bulk of the ogre's body rested. Its dumb face and eyes, caught in an expression of mild befuddlement, looked down at her. It was an eerie sight, as though someone had set about sculpting a human face with no guidance to how a human face looked.

And yet, for all the figure's vapidity, there was a beauty to it. Vienne was a wright, yes, and a blacksmith, but above all she was an artificer, a creator of pymarics. Her passion lay where the two fields intersected, in the hammering of shapes and the forming of complicated spells. And she had never had so fine a canvas as this. First Earth was not a terribly good Material, but there was so _much_ of it! It was all she could do not to reach out and press her fingerprints upon it, fill it with cobbled-together memories and constructed personalities.

And why shouldn't she? Mathis looked at this ogre and saw only profit. It was all he could ever see, it seemed; sem ruled his life from the rising to the setting of the sun. And to be sure, there was a fantastic opportunity here for profit...but in the darkness of her workshop, new ideas began to turn in her mind. This ogre could be so much more. It would practically be criminal to leave it like this, broken into pieces and sold a bit at a time.

She stood up, hesitating only a moment before sitting down at her drafting desk and drawing up the plans for what would become her second son.

* 

Anger. Hatred. Sorrow. Regret. These emotions, the vivid sensations at the moment of death, were plentiful, scattered throughout the khert wherever a wright worth his salt might cast his line. Piecing together a ghost from those was no challenge at all.

But although he was to be a weapon of war (for the March, she had been told, had need of such things, for the revolution to come) she wanted him to be more than that. He was to be a weapon that could only be used it had cause to be used; a construct with a conscience and a mind. For that she would need more: compassion, and love, and kindness.

She plumbed the unsounded depths of the khert, over and over again, looking for the memories she needed. Usually she brought back only handfuls of black tar. But every now and then, a shot of gold glinted in the muck. She tied those glimmering fragments together, molding them until she held Uaid in her hands.

* 

Matty screamed the first time Uaid picked him up, and it startled Uaid so badly that he nearly dropped him. Matty waved in the air for a moment, held aloft only by Uaid's surprisingly delicate two-fingered grip on the back of his shirt.

“Careful, Uaid! Put him back down, gently, now!”

The stone floor rose up to meet Matty until he was dropped lightly onto it. He turned over, looking up at the stone figure. He had frightened Matty at first, but the expression on the enormous green face (confusion and curiosity mixed with no small amount of fear of having hurt him) was too incongruous to be feared for long. Enormous and carved of stone though he may be, the construct was a child in every way that counted.

“Good, good,” their mother said, patting the giant on the hand. A smile of pure innocence split the craggy rock face. “Uaid, this isn't just another boy. He's someone very special for you. This is my son, Matty. Your big brother.”

Uaid made no sound, but picked Matty up once more, whole frame vibrating with affection. This time, there were no screams, only joyous whoops as the ground fell away from beneath him.

* 

Vienne and her group of trusted workers (all of them March sympathizers like herself) worked day and night on Uaid. The formation of his personality was only the beginning; his First Earth body was filled with as many combat spells as they could cram in. And then there was the rest of his body; what parts of the ogre's corpse they sold off needed to be replaced with steel.

There was so much work to do, and all this time, she was still handling the sale. She had set aside enough First Earth to keep their buyer happy for a few years. The slowness of Mathis' plan worked in her favor: nobody would know what she was doing until she had finished Uaid, because the gradual flow of money and First Earth would continue uninterrupted.

It was a perfect plan, ruined by one thing: for the first time in their married lives, Mathis came home sooner than he'd promised, rather than later.

*

“What have you _done_ to it _?”_

“What does it look like, Mathis?”

“Well, it looks like you've turned it into an oversized pymaric. It looks like it might even be a half-finished war construct, but I'm certain that that can't be right. You are far too intelligent to do something as brazenly stupid as that!”

Uaid reacted to his words like any child witnessing his parents fighting. His expression became hurt and confused, and Vienne dashed over to his side to comfort him.

“He's not just a construct!” she protested, stroking Uaid's hand to calm him. “Let me show you what I've been doing, you'll change your mind!”

“Vienne, I can already tell that it's a magnificent piece of work. That isn't the problem. The problem is that selling a weapon of war is a much, much, much more dangerous game than selling contraband First Earth! Even if we could find a buyer, it _would_ be traced back to us, and the penalties-”

“I don't care about the penalties, Mathis! The March needs-”

“ _You're selling this to the March!?”_

Until now, he had been trying to remain calm, remain the voice of reason. But that shot him over the edge, into a world of terror. He worked for the Window, after all. He knew well what happened to March collaborators, or even those suspected of harboring sympathies.

His carefully maintained facade of reason exploded, and the first and only true fight of their marriage began.

*

It was an explosion of emotion, fear turning to anger and bursting from the confines that had been set for it. Mathis launched the first volley, but neither of their hands remained clean for long.

He called her reckless and foolish. She called him cold and unfeeling. He called her ungrateful. She asked what she had to be grateful for.

“I've worked every day for this family, and every copper I make has been sent back to you! What do you have to be grateful for? Only everything!”

“And so what? So Matty can grow up without ever knowing a father? I'm sure all that sem will be fine comfort for him when we're both dead and gone!”

“How dare you criticize me for that. Do you think I like working all the time? Do you think I _like_ never seeing my son?”

“Well, if it walks like a dog, and barks like a dog...”

And so on, and so forth. Every frustration, every unspoken irritation, every thing that had never been spoken because suppressing it until he left again was so much easier, came up to the surface again, and spit across the space between them like acid.

When he could bear no more of it, Mathis stormed out into the frozen night, wrapping his cloak around his shoulders to guard against the cold. But it was not the cold that made his hands shake, nor the ice crusting on his brow. The passions of a moment before had cooled into a lump of dread that sat in his gut.

If she went forward with this plan, she would die, or worse. As far as Mathis was concerned, that was not mere possibility, but certain fact. There was no way they could keep her name out of it for long, especially once the other villagers realized they were being cheated out of the lion's share of the profits. And when she was found...he knew exactly what would happen to her. It was his job to deliver people to that fate. And he couldn't persuade her, that much was obvious. She was set on this course, for better or for worse.

If he didn't stop her somehow, he would lose her. He knew that as certainly as he knew the sun would rise the next day. He needed to save her somehow. He had to do _something_.

And after long nights of panicked thought later, he could only think of one desperate thing to do.

* 

“This is...quite a request you've made of me, Quigley. I hope you understand that.”

Mathis' commanding officer was seated at his desk, hands folded contemplatively. He was the only one who Mathis could think to turn to; he trusted him, he had the authority to do what was needed, and perhaps most importantly, Mathis had heard many a story about how the Captain had 'fixed' problems for the men who served under him.

“I understand, of course,” he said. “I certainly don't think you can sweep it entirely under the rug.”

The Captain shook his head in disbelief, light blonde hair waving as he did. “An intact Mountain Ogre...even juvenile, that's a hell of a find. I don't blame you for getting carried away. It's too bad about your woman.”

“Yes, I know,” Mathis said, fidgeting nervously. “But something's come over her. You...you know how women are,” he continued, taking any opportunity to excuse away her political radicalism. “Always prone to fits of emotion. She doesn't know what she's doing. You have to help me, I can't let her destroy herself like this.” The words were false, but tinged with genuine panic.

The Captain stood up and walked around his desk to the door. He rapped at the soundproofing pymaric he'd activated there, testing it. “What, exactly, do you have in mind?” he asked as he walked back to his seat.

“Take the ogre. You can have all the credit for finding it, and we'll take the penalties for concealing it. All I ask is that you leave off _what_ she was doing with it when you write your report. Please. I don't have anyone else to turn to.”

The Captain considered, scratching his beard. “You're still asking me to stick my neck out pretty far for you.”

“I know. But it's Vienne. I can't lose her. I just can't.”

The other man laughed, breaking the tension. He reached across the desk and slapped Quigley on the shoulder. “Don't worry, Quigley. We take care of our own here. You're going to be just fine.”

For the first time in days, Mathis felt relief flood over him. It was like muscles he had been tensing for longer than humanly possible were finally being loosened. He stood up, and reached out to shake the Captain's hand, babbling gratitude.

Vienne would be angry, of course. No, she would be furious. But she would come to forgive him, in time. She would have to. And even if she didn't, at least she would be alive. That was all Mathis could want.

* 

If Mathis Quigley had not been so terrified of losing his wife, perhaps he would have thought twice about his plan. And, perhaps, if his Captain was not of the Gold caste, he might have read him through the Dammakhert and discerned his intentions. But in his haste and panic-driven stupidity, he did neither of these things.

*

He departed for home two days later, feeling like a weight had lifted off of his shoulders. It was not until he came in sight of the village and saw the column of smoke rising from the workshop, that he realized he'd made a terrible mistake.

The workshop was collapsed and burnt. The soldiers' tracks were fresh, they must have left only a day ago at most, but he was beyond noticing such things. The forge's ruins were a cooling oven; there was no chance anything still lived inside them. But he still searched like a man possessed, dissolving solid matter with pymary and heaving iron beams until he found her, miraculously unburned but utterly bereft of life.

He clung to her, at the center of a blasted ruin, surrounded by fire and death, and wept, calling her name over and over. The only thing he could think to say was “I'm sorry,” but it was too late, too late, too late.

* 

Many times in his life, during the quiet hours of the night, Mathis Quigley would find himself wondering what Vienne must have thought when those soldiers arrived. What had she thought he had done? Did they say anything to her? In the last moments of her life, had she blamed him? Was she already unconscious, Stung through Alderode's twisted khert?

He would never know, but the questions tormented him still. And in the few years allotted to him, there is little he would regret so much as that their final parting was so full of anger.

* 

He carried her out of the ruins, and found himself surrounded by his people, eyeing him mistrustfully. He had brought the ogre, he had left his woman in charge of it, he had invited death and destruction on their little village. He knew instantly that he would never be a true part of this community again.

They led him into town, to the small house which belonged to the village doctor. Here, they told him, lay his son. Blinded in the fighting, but still alive. Numb to the world, Mathis stepped inside.

The room was dark, so he lit a candle and approached the bed. There, in repose, with bandages over his eyes, lay Matty, so still you could imagine he was dead as well.

“Matty,” he said, barely able to summon up a whisper. But the call of his name woke the boy, and he turned his head towards the sound of Mathis's voice.

“Who's there?” he asked, and Mathis's heart broke. _He doesn't recognize my voice_.

“It's me, Matty. Your father.”

“Papa?” Matty sat up, now, slowly and carefully. He reached out blindly with one hand. “Papa, where are you?”

“I'm right here,” he said, taking the hand in his own. He was on his knees by the bedside now.

“Papa, Mama is-”

“I know, Matty,” he replied, his voice breaking. “I know she's gone. I'm so sorry, it's all my fault.”

“Don't cry!” Matty said, although his own voice was wet. “Mama wouldn't...wouldn't want you to cry! I...”

His voice was lost in a set of hiccupping sobs, and Mathis clung to him like a survivor to a liferaft. He held him as waves of sobs rocked his tiny frame, barely holding back tears of his own.

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I...I can't possibly make this right, not if I had the lifetime of a Copper to try. But I will keep you safe. You're all I have left of her now.”

His mind was already full of plans. They couldn't stay in Alderode any longer. Who knew what else the good Captain might have decided to tell? A Sting could be coming for him at any moment. They had to escape, had to leave the Dammakhert's reach.

“W-what about Uaid?” Matty had composed himself enough to ask. Mathis looked down, brow furrowing.

“Uaid?” Was that one of Vienne's workers?

“M-my little brother! Is he okay?”

For a moment, Mathis thought his child had gone mad as well as blind. He was fairly certain he would remember if he had a second son. But then it clicked: “You mean the construct?”

Matty nodded. Mathis shrugged helplessly. “I don't know. The Window must have taken it. They'll either disassemble it...or finish it, perhaps.”

“No!” Matty shouted suddenly. “Papa, you can't let them! You have to save him!”

Confused by this sudden outburst, Mathis blinked twice before answering. “There would be a whole regiment of soldiers and wrights between me and it. I'm sorry, but it's going to be all I can do just to get the two of us out of the country.”

“You have to!” Matty insisted, clinging pleadingly to the front of Mathis' tunic. “He saved me, Papa! He picked me up when everything went dark and put me outside! You can't just let them-let them kill him too!”

Frustration boiled over in Mathis and turned to anger. Here Matty's mother lay dead, and all he could speak about is the fate of an oversized plaything? “There is _nothing I can do!_ ” he roared. Matty flinched, and Mathis pressed forward. “Do you understand the seriousness of our situation? _Do you_? Your mother is dead, and that stupid hunk of rock is what got her killed! If I'm lucky, I can save what's left of my family, and that is exactly what I intend to do, even if I have to drag you every step of the way!”

There was a moment of silence. His anger had cowed Matty for a moment. Then his tiny frame rallied, and with blind and covered eyes he stared his father in the face and bravely spoke the words that would change the course of both of their lives:

“Uaid is a part of this family, too. Mama always said that you were the best wright she'd ever known. She said you could do anything. So, please, save him.”

For a moment, it seemed almost certain that if one tore off the bandage and dug down beneath the foggy cataracts, they would find Vienne's eyes staring resolutely back at them. In the face of his son's simple courage, Mathis could not find it in him to refuse.

* 

“That's quite a story, Mister Quigley. I appreciate your sharing it with me.”

The playwright was skimming over her notes, taken during several lengthy sessions with the Aldish defector. It had been a long process, one full of painful memories, and Quigley was glad to see it behind him.

“You say that as though I had a choice,” he said, his voice bitter. One of the conditions of the granting of amnesty to him by the Crescian government had been that he provide one of the realm's notable playwrights with the plot of their next production. Anya Hirz had taken an immediate interest, to his dismay. As it turned out, she had a fascination with ensuring that all the little details were correct. “But the masses must have their pablum in the end, I suppose.”

“I promise, I'll treat your wife's memory with all the respect she deserves,” the Crescian woman said, closing her notes. “She sounds like an exceptional woman, especially given how backwards Aldish society is.”

“You'll find no disagreement from me on either score,” he said. “If I never set foot in that hell-hole again, it will be too soon for my tastes.”

“I'll get to work immediately. Is there anything else you can think of, that I might find useful? This is the last chance, as it were.”

Quigley hesitated a moment. In telling the story, he had avoided mentioning his role in Vienne's death. The shame was nearly too great for him to bear as it was; he could not stand to have every theatregoer in Cresce privy to it. And yet, perhaps he should...

“No. I think you more or less have it.” Even from Matty, this was a secret he would carry to his grave. The millstone of guilt set about his neck. The shame too great to speak, the crime too great to escape.

He still did not believe in Gods. The world was still, for him, aspects and khert, unromantic save for the sheer scope and complexity. But he had destroyed the only thing he considered holy, and for that he deserved no forgiveness.


End file.
